The Benefits Of Baby Talk

It may be annoying, but it works:

For one, infants like baby talk. Pretty much from the get-go they’ll listen to it longer than they’ll listen to speech directed toward adults. Baby talk is also a particularly efficient conduit of speakers’ emotions and intentions. All speech transmits this information to some degree; a non-English speaker can nonetheless listen to an English speaker’s words and do a decent job of deciding whether they’re listening to chastisement, approval, comfort-giving, or attention-seeking. But present that non-English speaker with English baby talk and she’ll do an even better job. Baby talk, with its theatrical sing-songedness, wears its heart on its sleeve.